The invention generally relates to aircraft galleys, and more particularly pertains to a system for releasably latching a door of a galley cart bay for releasably retaining an aircraft galley cart within the galley cart bay for storing and serving food on aircraft.
On commercial aircraft with in-flight catering services, carts are used to transport meals from the galley to the passengers in the cabin. Such carts are typically retained in the galley with turn buttons that include arms that rotate about an axis that is perpendicular to the front face of galley. Rotation of the arms downwardly serves to retain the carts in their stowed position within the galley.
With the current trend towards the “air over” method of cart chilling which requires the cart bays to have doors, the turn buttons have to be placed on the outside of the doors, which results in an undesirable increase in the depth of a galley, a poor aesthetic appearance and ergonomic disadvantages although the doors may be used for retention. While location of the arms inside the doors results in a better aesthetic appearance and ergonomics, it does increase the work deck height and potential cold bridge issues through the doors themselves. In such configuration the doors are not normally used for retention (with the possible exception of cart kick-up loads) although additional door latching is required to secure the doors themselves. To release the carts both turn buttons need to be stowed which requires the use of both hands or a repeated single action. With this configuration there is no simultaneous slam facility in the event of a need for rapid stowage during an emergency.
To secure the carts or compartment doors, the turn buttons are attached to a substantial work deck beam in order to withstand the twisting force imposed on their rear face by forward momentum of fully loaded carts under simulated emergency conditions. The beam is usually manufactured from aluminum, heavy and can form another cold bridge within the chilled cart compartment.
A galley cart latching system is needed that is capable of effectively and efficiently securing galley carts and their contents in an aircraft's galley while overcoming the disadvantages of previously known systems. The present invention meets these and other needs.